Does vanish reset the mob's PP loot table?

If not, if you notice a lockbox show, but you dont loot it, you could try vanishing and PP again.

Probably not worth it to blow the cooldown, but ya never know, that could have been the lockbox with it in there.

No, Vanish does not reset the loot table. I've Vanished before when interrupted looting in order to acquire the pick pocketed item I've missed.

Long time reader, recently registered

I use this macro when farming:

#Showtooltip Sap
/cast Sap
/stopcasting
/script SetAutoLootDefault(1)
/cast Pick Pocket
/script SetAutoLootDefault(0)
/stopcasting

The sap is nice as it lets you get all the loot while your energy regens.

Would love one of these thrown weapons as I have had no luck so far regarding an Arcanite Steam Pistol.

I just got a Spinesever. I can confirm that is from a pickpocketed lockbox, and its is ilvl100.

And where did you farm this wonderful weapon?

I put in about an hour at the Legon hold in SMV last night, and no luck.

Heroic Blood Furnace. I suspect it can be from any mob that can be pickpocketted.

Another PP/CS option if you aren't getting everything with auto loot, might be to use the /castsequence command e.g.
I don't know that I've ever had a problem with it though.

/castsequence reset=0 Pick Pocket, Cheap Shot

hit it once to pick pocket and a second time to Cheap Shot.

A question about 5s/5r cycles. I'm a sword rogue and I've always heard of using 1s/5r or 2s/5r if you don't have 2/T4. Is 5s/5r for sword rogue? If so, can someone explain why you would want to wait and use 3 more CPs for a SnD?

The basic idea behind any rotation is to keep Slice and Dice up 100% of the time while doing the maximum possible Rupture damage. The reason why you'd use any Xs/Yr rotation is that for your spec and gear, it optimally accomplishes both these goals.

That said, it depends what type of build exactly you're talking about.

As Combat Swords, 1s/5r is usually the norm with 2-piece Tier 4 (although it varies based on how much hit/haste you have for Combat Potency procs). Once you lose 2-piece Tier 4 the sheet will usually recommend 3.Xs/5r. As Aldriana put it so well in the first post of the thread, this means you can either "weave" 3 and 4 point Slice and Dices, or you can just do the next highest SnD, which will usually be 4. Of course you'd have to check the sheet with your specific gear and build put in.

As Hemo, combo point generation is a bit slower due to the lack of Combat Potency (even though Hemo only costs 35 energy). Therefore you'd want to a 5s/5r; however, you'd have to do one 4-point Rupture every so often because 5s/5r with this build is not hypothetically sustainable, and you also need to have the energy to use Blade Flurry.

So, the reason one specifically doesn't use 1s5r or 2s5r as a sword rogue without 2/5 T4 is because you won't be able to keep up 100% SnD uptime, and that is, shall we say, very very bad, on the whole. Hence, you need to use a cycle long enough to keep SnD up; for most of us, that's either 3s5r or 4s5r.

Now, the next question is, why would one use 5s5r over one of those? Well, there's a couple answers to that question, all of which can reasonably be argued to be valid:

1) You shouldn't, 4s5r (or 3s5r, or whatever) is better.
2) Because 5s5r only deals trivially less damage (like, .2% or something), and some people find it easier to maintain, it's potentially worth using if you have responsibilities in a raid beyond optimizing your DPS.
3) 5s5r has more slack in it; if your cycle gets disrupted for any reason (Kaz'rogal War Stops you, Naj'entus throws up a shield causing you to pause DPS for a few seconds, Kael starts casting something that you need to kick, Magtheridon bounces you around, or even just simple bad luck on procs) 5s5r is less likely to drop SnD uptime due to the disruption than 4s5r or 3s5r.
4) What 5s5r fundamentally does relative to more compressed cycles is sacrifice some finisher damage for extra SS damage. 5s5r spends 0 net energy on finishers; a cycle like 3s5r on average spends 10 energy on finishers, which is 10 energy not being spend on Sinister Strikes. For most rogues, this tradeoff is worth it; however, at very high itemization levels, it's possible to get enough AP/Crit/Armor Penetration that the Sinister Strikes actually do more damage, such that 5s5r will actually do more damage.

And lastly, something I've been playing around with lately:
5) If you have Ashtongue Talisman of Lethality, the slack energy of 5s5r allows you to manipulate your cycles a little more than you can with a tighter cycle; you can, for instance, wait a few seconds after building up 5 combo points to let your energy tick up to ~60 before launching the next finisher; this allows more Sinister Strikes to be launched while the Ashtongue buff is up. Such manipulations are somewhat harder (though, admittedly, not totally impossible) with a tighter cycle.

I've actually been playing around with this myself as well, albeit going from a tight 3s/5r to 4s/5r. I haven't recorded any hard numbers, but my gut is that it is a significant increase. Not only from it being able to stack up a pool of energy to be burst out after finisher, but also due to getting an extra 20% for the buff. I'm considering moving up to a 5s/5r cycle for that reason, since it would give me a 100% chance for the buff, and I could get more SS's off while covered by it. Its like what you have to do as raid Mutilate with Find Weakness.

I can confirm that this is possible with a 1s/5r rotation though certainly not on every cycle. The cases where I have mostly been able to pull this "energy burst" off is typically when I cannot overwrite a rupture but still have some SnD time to spare. Since I have the Ashtongue trinket, I thought it better to save some energy while the last seconds of rupture tick off, refresh it (getting the trinket buff), renew my SnD, and launch some nasty sinister strike crits. Sadly, I finally broke my 2 piece-T4 bonus this week for T6 and will have to experiment with a longer cycle.

One question, though: is it also worth switching to 5s/5r, if you have the Ashtongue trinket, as to guarantee the buff after each SnD? Will the dps gained by increased trinket uptime outweigh the dps lost by less rupture uptime?

Question: have ZA drops been added or am I going to have to calculate AEP by hand :P

Look back a few pages, Katherine linked a spreadsheet with Zul Aman loot and updated formulas for Expertise and new hit cap. No changes to Hemo and Aggression though

no Berserker's Call :/

Bloodlust Brooch has 115ap, i think it should be 118 ^^ (115 is pre 2.1 itemchange)

doublepost :o

Speaking of cycles, I'm currently ~t5 level with 1pc t6 and 1pc t4 still :\. I lost my 2pc t4 to get the t6 gloves, even the spreadsheet says it's a huge upgrade with the cycle difference, but it recommends a 3.4s5r. I was using that but noticing a lof of SnD overlap and usually having trouble keeping Rupture up all the time. I switched to a 1.2s5r (switching between 1 and 2 SnD's as needed) and see about 99% SnD uptime (less than a second of downtime, if at all) and 0 rupture overlap.

Is there a reason that I'm able to see somewhat tighter cycles in practice, but the sheet doesnt' offer it? Am I just that lucky that for the past week I've had amazing energy procs and thus able to run a tighter cycle?

As I said, it seemed odd to myself as well, losing an extra 3 secs on my SnD and I'm still able to maintain roughly the same cycle. I'll monitor it better this next hyjal/bt clear, but I'm fairly certain I saw little to no SnD/Rupture downtime.

Since you have a DST I suspect that when it procs you get an excess of energy that allows you to keep the cycles going when you normally would not, also, BL or drums of battle would help out with the speed increase. If you are going to watch your uptimes, try and keep track of when your DST procs to see if that is where you are getting your extra energy.

Good point, I'll try and notice that. And, its' entirely possible that I'm not noticing drop offs in SnD/Rupture when they actually ARE happening, but I'll se tuesday, we do a full hyjal and 3/9 BT clear, so that should give me plenty of fights to notice and keep track on.

I wasn't pointing this out to find flaw the the sheets, btw. Rather, I was worried that I am either a)Screwing myself over without even knowing it, since this is 100% impossible, or the other option of b) I found some odd set of circumstances where I am able to do what I'm doing and it's possible for others to do it as well. We'll see after tuesday..


Also, wondering if anyone has heard of a spinesever coming from lockboxes from other places than heroics/SMV. I know that reasonably, the boxes from any 61+ mob would work, but with so few spinesevers out, hard to really put a nail on any definite answers. I was working the ogre's at Burning Blade just because I can two shot them, little reistance from opposing faction and seem to have a little better lockbox rate than anything I've found in SMV, but I don't want to waste my time if no one has gotten one from anything lower than 67+ mobs... :\

I don't see the Relentless strikes energy in the calculation (could be me though, already falling half asleep).

From personal experience 2s/5r is doable if you have 2 T6, before I got my 2nd piece it was almost impossible to keep up a 2 point SnD rotation.
It's by no means a perfect rotation, meaning that without "lucky" procs from DST, Mongoose and my other friendly fellow rogues are slacking on Drums rupture will run out, but then I have some extra combo's for SnD meaning I have more slack in the next rotations.

Then I again there's hardly any fight left where I can stand on the boss for more than 3 min without having to run out or something else happening so I can't keep up any cycle.

Relentless Strikes is implicitly included by the fact that only 15 energy is counted for finishers instead of 50.

Ignore, being an idiot